It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim novels. (Reviews of the first three are here, here, and here).

Devil Said Bang is another fine entry in the series, living up to the high standards created in the earlier installments.

Some slight spoilers follow, so if you haven’t read the first three books, go read them right now before reading this post.

When we last saw James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, he’d recently defeated the warped pseudo-angels known as the Kissi at the gates of Heaven, crushing them between the Legions of Hell and the Armies of God. All Stark wants when it’s over was to get back to LA and his girlfriend Candy so they canget naked and break more furniture.

Lucifer, having grown tired of dealing with all of the bullshit in Hell and wanting to reconcile with God, splits town and leaves Stark in charge as the new Lucifer. It’s a job he doesn’t want, since ruling Hell largely involves endless bureaucratic meetings about zoning, construction, and politics, and avoiding the servants who wander into his rooms unannounced. It doesn’t help matters that at least half of the denizens of Hell want him dead and are enthusiastically trying to make that happen.

He escapes from Hell and makes his way back to the real LA, but finds it almost as bad as the place he just left. People are being murdered by the ghost of a little girl with a penchant for knives, he comes across an ancient weapon that’s almost too dangerous for anyone in the universe to handle, and uncovers a plot to rewrite the rules of reality itself into something that’s even less appetizing than Hell.

The writing is Kadrey’s trademark blistering prose—hardboiled, evocative, laugh-out-loud funny, and at times strangely touching.

Highly recommended.